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Saturday, March 3, 2007

It seems like only yesterday I was a freckle-faced little ankle-biter roaming the gently rolling, sparsely wooded land around Pella, Iowa. Yes, I was born just 45 years ago today in that charming little Iowa town where they say "You're not much if you're not Dutch!"

And now, just a couple of blinks later, I'm opening my mail and getting solicitations from the freaking AARP! As much as I'd LOVE to retire tomorrow, I'm not prepared to do any of the following:

trade in my Keens for arch supports

place my teeth in a glass at night

trading my boxers for adult diapers (not even the cool astronaut kind you can wear for an entire week)

Jello shots of Geritol

So why the H-E-double-hockey-sticks am I on the AARP radar all of a sudden?If you ask me they are robbing the cradle. 45 is NOT 65!

10
comments:

Happy Birthday Billy Thompson!! I didn't think it was that long ago that you were a little ankle-biter either. I do believe that a person can join AARP when they are 50! I find that shocking! Have a really great birthday!!!

Shock, that AARP offer, isn't it??Gets you discounts, though.We, at the advanced old age of 58, get the senior discount at the local movie emporium and pay adult prices, $2.50 a ticket more, for our 14 year old daughter. So what is with that?Caroline in SD

I wonder if your AARP has to do with having the same name as your father. My Bill has the same name as his father and has been receiving AARP stuff since he turned 30 a few years ago. I have yet to get anything from AARP since I turned 30.

Happy Birthday! I've been getting those AARP invites for awhile too and got just as "irked" about it. Not as "irked" though as when I read an article in a local paper about a man who wants to start a search engine designed for "seniors age 50 and over cause they don't know how to use Google, etc." I'm 52 and I may not be "webmaster material" but I still consider myself pretty darn computer savvy.

About Bill

Bill of the Birds

Bill Thompson III is the editor of Bird Watcher's Digest by day. He's also a keen birder, the author of many books, a dad, a field trip leader, an ecotourism consultant, a guitar player, the host of the "This Birding Life" podcast, a regular speaker/performer on the birding festival circuit, a gentleman farmer, and a fungi to be around. His North American life list is somewhere between 673 and 675. His favorite bird is the red-headed woodpecker. His "spark bird" was a snowy owl. He has watched birds in 25 countries and 44 states. But his favorite place to watch birds is on the 80-acre farm he shares with his wife, artist/writer Julie Zickefoose. Some kind person once called Bill "The Pied Piper of Birding" and he has been trying to live up to that moniker ever since.